Influence of composing strategy on the comprehensibility of technical documents in English

Scope and Method of Study: This study investigated whether readers comprehend English single-sourced texts with cohesive devices differently from single-sourced texts without cohesive devices, and whether native and non-native English readers also comprehend the texts differently. Participants in the study were graduate students at Oklahoma State University and the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, including 40 native readers and 19 East Asian readers. Test instruments were two authentic single-sourced English texts, adjusted to emphasize or minimize between-paragraph cohesive ties. Each participant read a cohesive version of one text and a non-cohesive version of the other text. For each text, participants answered global Likert-scale questions on the text's comprehensibility, used information from the text to solve small tasks, and identified the cohesive devices they had used to connect pieces of information. Likert-scale ratings and task scores were analyzed with a series of Kruskal-Wallis tests, followed by Mann Whitney U tests on significant results, corrected with the Bonferroni method. Cohesive devices named by participants were tallied and categorized.Findings and Conclusions: On one Likert-scale item, non-native readers reported relationships among ideas in one of the cohesive texts to be significantly clearer than did native readers. On one task item, two groups of cohesive readers completed the task with significantly greater accuracy than did the corresponding two groups of non-cohesive readers. Of the semantic cohesive devices named, participants named more lexical cues than any other type; of the structural devices named, participants named bolded heading and subheadings most frequently. Within-paragraph lexical repetition may reinforce the effectiveness of between-paragraph cohesive devices. For readers of English single-sourced technical documents, textual cohesiveness may contribute more to reader comprehension than do adjustments for different linguistic backgrounds

2012-2013, University of Memphis bulletin

University of Memphis bulletin containing the graduate catalog for 2012-2013.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-ua-pub-bulletins/1432/thumbnail.jp

2011-2012, University of Memphis bulletin

University of Memphis bulletin containing the graduate catalog for 2011-2012.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-ua-pub-bulletins/1431/thumbnail.jp

NASA Tech Briefs, November 2001

Topics include: special coverage section on data acquisition, and sections on electronic components and systems, software, materials, machinery/automation, physical sciences, book and reports, and a special section of Photonics Tech Briefs

2013-2014, University of Memphis bulletin

University of Memphis bulletin containing the graduate catalog for 2013-2014.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-ua-pub-bulletins/1434/thumbnail.jp

2014-2015, University of Memphis bulletin

University of Memphis bulletin containing the graduate catalog for 2014-2015.https://digitalcommons.memphis.edu/speccoll-ua-pub-bulletins/1433/thumbnail.jp

Assessing simultaneous interpreting :a study on test reliability and examiners' assessment behaviour

PhD ThesisA substantial amount of research work has been done on the quality assurance of conference interpreting, yielding useful guidelines for the selection and training of interpreters. However, the field of assessment in interpreter training within the educational context is still under-researched. Many interpreter trainers and researchers have pointed out some urgent issues to be addressed in the assessment of interpreting. Among them, the issues surrounding the test validity and reliability are most in need of clarification. This study tackles this complex subject by firstly exploring what the examiners are really paying attention to when assessing student interpreters. Thirty examiners, who are mostly based in Taiwan – some with substantial interpreting experience and some with less, were invited as study subjects to participate in a simulation of simultaneous interpreting examination. This research study adopted a multi-strategy approach in collecting and analysing research data – quantitative and qualitative. Inconsistencies and fuzziness are two themes identified in the study findings in terms of the examiners’ judgements and their use of assessment criteria. The examiners might appear to be using the same assessment criteria, but there were variations in the way how they were used. This study explores, discusses, and clarifies the intricate relations of various components and factors in the interpreting examinations. Based on the study findings, a conceptual model is proposed as a framework for describing the test constructs of the interpreting examinations, and for understanding how the examiners apply the assessment criteria in order to improve the assessment instruments and examination procedures. At the end, implications of the study method are discussed and suggestions are made for future studies in this area

Integration of Reciprocal Teaching-ICT Model To Improve Students’Mathematics Critical Thinking Ability

This research examines the effectiveness on how mathematics teachers have begun to integrate information and communication technology (ICT) with reciprocal teaching model to improve students’ mathematics critical thinking ability into seventh junior high school classroom practice. This study was experimental research with a quasi-experimental design. The samples of the study are 36 students for classroom experiments and 36 students for classroom control. The instruments employed in this study were pre-test and post-test. All the instruments are made in essays forms. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics. Based on the research findings, it was gotten that (1) the development of teaching instructional multimedia of the seven grade students of junior high school; (2) the improvement of students’ mathematics critical thinking ability in experimental class; (3) the aspect of attractiveness shows that the developed instructional multimedia was very interesting; and (4) reciprocal learning has good impact on students’ mathematics critical thinking ability